Decision to reclassify Swiss firearms angers gun owners

Gun enthusiasts were livid Thursday over the RCMP’s decision to reclassify as prohibited a line of Swiss-imported firearms, which have been legal in Canada since 2001.

Whether owners of those guns, which cost between $3,000 to $4,000, will receive compensation is unclear. Shawn Bevins, executive vice-president of the National Firearms Association, said he spoke to a senior government official on Wednesday and was told that there would be none.

But Jean-Christophe de Le Rue, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, said Thursday via email that “all options are on the table” and that the minister was looking into the matter “on an urgent basis.”

He added that Blaney “wasn’t consulted” on the decision to re-classify the guns.

As Postmedia News reported last month, the RCMP spent the better part of a year reviewing the status of the rifles, frustrating gun enthusiasts and sellers who said the case highlighted deep flaws and lack of transparency in the gun-classification system.

“The RCMP or government should take responsibility for how they’re going to deal with this,” James Bachynsky, owner of the Calgary Shooting Centre, said on Thursday. “Every Canadian should be concerned about a government that arbitrarily prohibits items.”

For the past 13 years, the Swiss Arms family of rifles, whose models include the Classic Green, Black Special and Red Devil, were classified as either restricted or non-restricted.

But the RCMP’s firearms classification table was recently updated to state that after a “thorough inspection” of the rifles, officials deemed them to be “variants” of a prohibited firearm commonly known as the SG-550 or SG-551.

Despite repeated requests, RCMP officials refused to comment Thursday on the decision to re-classify the rifles or how they intended to notify owners of the change and what their expectations were of those owners.

An RCMP briefing note sent to the public safety minister last year and obtained by Postmedia News stated that if the Swiss rifles were prohibited, “affected owners may seek compensation” and that “the value of the rifle is estimated at approximately $4,000.”

The document stated that there were 301 restricted Swiss Arms rifles registered in Canada but that it was “impossible” to know how many non-restricted rifles there were given the end of the long-gun registry.

James Cox, the owner The Shooting Edge gun store in Calgary and the original importer of the Swiss Arms rifles to Canada, said last month he thinks there may be more than 2,000 Swiss Arms rifles in the country.

While not committing one way or the other on the question of compensation, Blaney’s spokesman said Thursday the minister would “take appropriate action to ensure that firearms owners who acted in good faith are not penalized as a result of the actions of others.” He wouldn’t elaborate.

Gun enthusiasts were skeptical and turned to social media to vent their anger.

“The RCMP has shown contempt for the rights of Canadians by their actions, and we expect the Government of Canada to take steps and introduce measures to rein in the RCMP,” the National Firearms Association said in a statement posted on its website.

President Sheldon Clare later said by phone that the association would mount a legal challenge of the reclassification.

“The government needs to understand that people who pay $3,000 (for a gun) are not using it to stick up 7-Elevens,” he said. “These are honest Canadian firearms owners who are being converted into a criminalized class.”

The RCMP review of the imported rifles was triggered last year after Cox contacted authorities to report that someone had brought into his store what he believed to be a counterfeit Swiss Arms rifle.

But Cox’s complaint had the unintended consequence of snowballing into a broader probe of the entire line of Swiss Arms rifles — including the ones he had imported to Canada.